By What do you do when you've just scored a huge TV hit? Especially if that TV hit has come to an end?
It can be tricky for actors to instantly land themselves an equally brilliant role, but at least they're now in the frame for all kinds of intriguing projects.
Some stars, though, go down a completely different route. Perhaps they don't want to get typecast, or maybe they're just a free spirit and fancy a total reboot. Here are the times when successful TV actors threw us an unexpected career plot twist.
1. Hugh Laurie
From: House
To: Blues musician
Hugh was already a TV legend in his homeland, but House brought him an otherworldly status around the world, particularly in the States. The medical drama was a huge success, and he was at one stage the highest-paid actor on television.
While he has since made other brilliant TV shows like The Night Manager, Hugh took a huge sidestep once House ended in 2011. Instead of leading his own movies or a brand new drama or comedy, he dusted off his piano.
It turned out that Hugh was just as talented and passionate about the blues as he was about acting, and he was one of the few actors-turned-musicians who made it work. His debut album Let Them Talk reached number two in the UK charts. His follow-up Didn't It Rain hit number three.
2. James Cosmo
From: Game of Thrones
To: Celebrity Big Brother
Veteran actor James Cosmo has starred in Braveheart, Trainspotting, Emma and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, but had arguably his biggest success in his long career playing Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, in HBO's Game of Thrones. You know, that big guy who took Jon Snow under his burly wing.
After his character was killed off, he appeared in a number of TV shows and movies, but his most high-profile post-Thrones appearance was in the first 2017 series of Celebrity Big Brother. Wait, what?
This is the age of CBB where it's the same old reality TV merry-go-rounders and glamour models you've never heard of. They don't usually have actual celebrities. James later admitted one of the reasons was money, saying: "Obviously there's financial things mainly. I also wanted to come in and be part of something that very few people experience."
3. Matt LeBlanc
From: Episodes
To: Top Gear
It took him a while, but Matt finally scored himself another TV hit in the shape of British-American comedy Episodes, lampooning himself and winning a Golden Globe in the process.
With Episodes on the way out, Matt looked for his next project, and we NEVER would have guessed that it would have been BBC motoring series Top Gear as a co-host alongside Chris Evans.
With Evans's departure, Matt is now the main host of the show alongside Rory Reid and Chris Harris. While it's had mixed reviews, we'd argue that it was a pretty amazing, if totally unexpected, career move.
4. Aaron Paul
From: Breaking Bad
To: Xbox ads
After many years in the wilderness, Aaron Paul became one of the biggest TV heroes thanks to his role as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. He won several awards for the part, including three Emmys.
One of the first projects he took on as soon as the show came to an end was being the face of a new Xbox One ad campaign, in which he showed off how "awesome" the console was. He dropped about nine cool-points the instant it first aired, especially from diehard PlayStation fans.
Aaron has yet to find a project remotely close to Breaking Bad in terms of showing off his talent, and he's currently starring in the Hulu drama The Path.
5. Frankie Muniz
From: Malcolm in the Middle
To: Racing driver
[asset removed due to syndication rights]It's always difficult for a child star to transition into a successful adult actor, but Frankie used his career satnav to take another route. To the race track.
Even before the show had finished, he was already taking part in celebrity races, and by 2007 he was regularly competing in entire racing seasons, with little to zero time for acting.
To this day, he has yet to appear in a long-term TV series or have a substantial role in a movie, with this most recent project being the third Sharknado film. In 2018, he cameoed in Preacher and appeared as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, finishing in third place.
